The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 112 - Trust

Transcript:

Jen: Hi, Peter.

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: After our recent episode about collaboration, I got a bunch of messages from people...that they wanted us to do what we sort of threatened we were going to do, which is talk about trust.

Pete: Ooh, yeah. I did, I did kind of indicate that at the end, from memory.

Jen: Yeah. Now, I feel like this could ultimately be a series of episodes. But let's just start with one. So, I want to talk about trust.

Pete: I trust you to lead us through this conversation, Jennifer. This is the Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: Okay, there are a million directions we could go. But I want to use a question someone asked me today as the prompt to get this going. And what she asked was, "How do you know if you trust someone? What does it take for you to trust someone?" And so I wrote her back, and I was sort of surprised that...what I was saying in my reply. So, I thought it might be interesting for us to dig into this. Because what it made me recognize is, that's a very individual and personal barometer.

Pete: Yeah, it feels like such a profoundly simple yet difficult question to get my head around. Huh.

Jen: I should also specify that she was talking about in collaboration. Like, how do you know you trust your collaborator? How do you know you trust someone when you're collaborating with them?

Pete: Got it. Alright. And so, do you want to kick yourself with your response? What was your initial like response that you said surprised you?

Jen: Well, I sort of had expected myself to be talking about character traits or personality. But when I really thought it through, the key factor in me trusting a collaborator is I want someone's standard of excellence for the work that we are putting out into the world to be as high or higher than mine. If someone's willing to put subpar work out into the world, that really corrodes my trust. I have a very high expectation of the quality of work that's going to go out into the world. And so you can be the nicest person, the most agreeable person, the smartest person, but if ultimately you're satisfied with work that is subpar, my trust is broken. I can't trust that you are going to take care of the quality. I didn't realize that that was so important to me until I really started digging into that this morning. I was like, "Woah, I really do value excellence."

Pete: Yeah. And to the point where...you didn't say this, but, so maybe I'll ask it. It's not even that you need to necessarily like the person in order to trust and collaborate with them effectively. There's something in consistency. That feels like the word that wants to come out of my mouth, which already did, so here we are. I feel like there's something in consistency that helps build, foster, create trust. So like I was thinking, as you were talking about something around people who do what they say they're going to do, or they...that, you know, you've talked about a few times in this episode how you think about integrity. When what you do, what you say, and what you believe are all in alignment, which feels like a level of consistency in who you are and how you show up. I wonder if there's something in that. Like, I feel like for me there seems to be something around...yeah, you do what you say you're going to do. And like, to use your example, I say I'm going to only ship something with a certain level of excellence. Okay, so then that's the bar that you have to consistently hit.

Jen: Yes, yes. So, I know I've had more time to think about this than you because I've been thinking about it since this morning. But what is your initial response to, what is it that makes you trust someone in a collaboration?

Pete: That's a brilliant question that I don't have, as you said, a thought-through answer for. So, let me try and like unpack it in the moment. Like I said, the first thing that came to my head was if someone is consistent in that they are doing what they say they're going to do. So, their words and their actions are very much aligned. That goes a long way for me to trusting them. If someone says something, but then I observe them doing the opposite thing, like, game over. That, like, the trust has been broken. You're saying one thing, and you're not behaving in the same way. So, I guess there's something there around looking for actions and words to be aligned. But then the other thing I was thinking of, like there's a...I don't know where this came from, so maybe I'll try and find it. But there's an idea that I heard once before which is, the only way to build trust is to empower people with things that you're not sure you can trust them with. And, and see what happens. So like, if I am not sure I could trust you with a secret, the only way to find out if I can actually trust you with that secret is to kind of tell you the secret and see what happens.

Jen: Yeah, oof, yep. Uh-huh. That sort of made me cringe in, in familiarity. Like, I know that feeling.

Pete: Yeah. Because again, like even the example I use of, "Are you acting in a way that's in aligninment with what you said?" Well, the only way I really know that is if I trust you with something and see what you do with it.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Pete: So there's something in like, like is there an assumption of trust first until it's broken? Or does someone need to prove they trust you? I haven't quite got my head around that. I'm kind of trying to process that at the moment.

Jen: Ooh. I mean, that feels like we would need to invite a guest who works in psychology to come on and talk about that. Because it seems to me that there's probably a lot of past issues that have to get sorted in order to decide.

Pete: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because then the other thing that came into my head, which I believe we've spoken about before, is if I use you and I as an example, the building of trust felt so rapid because we lead with vulnerability. Which is, you trusted me enough to share something with me around, "This is the situation that I'm in," when we very first met. "Can you help me lift the walls? Like, what does it look like to lift the walls?" And so, there was a level of trust that came about because you lead with vulnerability. And then there's like, there's almost the inverse (which I know other people think about), which is, "I can't be vulnerable with someone until I trust them." So I'm like, I know I'm jumbled in my thoughts here around, is vulnerability important to building trust? Does trust come before building vulnerability? Do we need to give someone something to see if we can trust them? Like I don't, I don't have a really solid, compelling answer for you at the moment. But these are the kinds of things floating around in my noodle.

Jen: It's interesting. Because I'm going back now to, what does vulnerability mean in like the kind of relationships that I was suggesting earlier? Where, you know, the level of excellence that we expect from each other is the key to the trust. And also, some of the people who I've worked with who are just like sort of grumpy all the time, and like not that much fun to work with, but they're so brilliant. And I recognize that vulnerability comes in many forms. Like in what you're talking about, when I came into that coaching with you there was some emotional vulnerability there of like having to say, "I'm not sure how to move forward. And I want to move forward, and I need help." But then there's also, in the creative realm, the vulnerability of trusting that someone is going to take care of your body of work, and your reputation, and your relationship with the audience (whatever that audience looks like), by crafting something that's really amazing. So, vulnerability comes in a lot of forms.

Pete: Well, in that latter example, that to me feels like an example of not knowing if you can trust someone until you share it with them. So you've shared your creative work, maybe with an acting coach, or someone that you might not know that well, and you kind of have to trust that they're going to hold that body of work for you. And if they don't, and they take it and they do something with it, or they say something and you're like, "Oh my gosh, that feels like a breach of my trust. Because you didn't take the piece of vulnerability that I put out there and treat it with the level of respect, and care, and integrity that I would hope you did."

Jen: And then, you know, on the empathy end of things, we have to acknowledge that any time we're in a collaboration with someone, they're doing the exact same thing. Asking like, "Can Jen be trusted with this thing that I'm sharing? Can Pete be trusted?" So, that's really interesting to me.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: And important to keep in mind.

Pete: I mean, I wonder if there's something that can help me try and land on a better answer in asking you like, how did you know you could trust me, for example? Or, how do you think about trust with our relationship or collaboration?

Jen: I've been thinking about this a lot today, actually. Because I recognize that our trust, of course, has grown over time. But early in our relationship, as we were starting to work on this podcast (and we've joked about this before), you were like, "Let's get one episode in the can, and then let's release it." And I was like, "We need three months of episodes in the can before we release a single thing. Thank you very much." And you were like, "Oh, I hadn't thought about that. That makes sense to me." And I have sort of become, on our team, the person who listens for some of the quality control issues. Like when I listen back now, I'm a little crazy about, you know, "I think we need to take this little piece out." We don't do a lot of editing. Like, maybe there are twenty seconds edited per episode, but I'm typically the one picking the twenty seconds.

Pete: Yeah, I'm always like, "It's a great episode!" And you're like, "We need to cut this particular twenty seconds." And I'm like, "Oh, okay."

Jen: Yeah. But similarly, you know, in our relationship, there are things that are important to you that really were not on my radar at all. And you've taken responsibility for those things. And I've released those things. So you get to shine where you shine, I get to shine where I shine, the things that are important to both of us are attended to. So, it's making me think that there is something about recognizing each other's strengths that is also part of trust.

Pete: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. This goes back to (I think we mentioned it in the episode that you mentioned, on collaboration) the Avengers or X-Men metaphor that I think about a lot. Which is everyone is a weird mutant. We're all a little bit quirky. We're all a little bit bizarre. And we all have our own unique superpower that we get to bring to a collaboration. So the Avengers are better because they work as a team, each leveraging their superpower. And they build trust through that. So it's like, there's something in that, I think. If you can have a collaboration, or a team where each person gets to show up and leverage their superpower, that builds trust. Because what we know is like, we don't need two Jen Waldmans on the podcast. That would be ridiculous. We need a Jen and a Pete. And Pete has different strengths to Jen, and vice versa. And the same is true in any effective team where there's a bunch of trust, whether it's diversity in age, or race, or religion, or demographic, or whatever, or skill set. We don't want a homogeneous team of the same kinds of people with the same kinds of strengths. Because we recognize innovation, creativity, all that comes...and trust, I think is what the saying, comes from allowing people to stand in their uniqueness.

Jen: Yeah, and then recognizing when someone is expressing, "This is important to me." Because if you had said, "No, let's release whatever episode we first record," there is no way we would be past one hundred and ten episodes. I would have found an excuse to get out of that pretty fast.

Pete: It's so interesting to think how on the wire we were back then, and I didn't even know.

Jen: Okay. I want to share one other thing that just came to my mind, which is collaborations where trust is broken. And I don't know about you, but like when I think about broken trust and collaboration, I remember details. I remember feelings. I remember the circumstances down to a tee. And I probably wouldn't change them, because when someone breaks your trust, it so informs your own personal constitution, and the kind of person you want to be, and the kind of work you want to do. So I think about some of my earlier career collaborators, one in particular comes to mind who when I exited that collaboration, I was like...I didn't say this out loud. But in my mind, I was like, "You are exactly the person I never ever want to be." And I know what that looks like, so I can measure myself in the other direction, which is really useful.

Pete: Yeah. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I'm thinking about a few in my past as well, where I've almost had the precursor to that moment. Which is like, "Why is it that I really, really struggle with this individual? I can't seem to trust them." And I can't...there's something like in my body, or in my mind, that's just like rejecting. And to your point, it's like the eventual realization of like, "Oh, they're out of alignment with who I want to be as a leader, or how I think about leadership, and collaboration, and creativity, and innovation." And like, recognizing that gives you more strength in your own skin, I guess, or your own recognition of what's important to you.

Jen: Ooh, I'm just so interested in this topic now that it's on the table. And I feel like I'm going to...like sorry about it, listeners, I have a feeling I'm going to keep coming back with like, "And one more thing about trust," for the next couple months. You know? There's just so much to unpack there. Because at the end of the day, trust is the driver of functional relationships.

Pete: Hmm. Yeah. And so, I guess the question or the noodle on that (recognizing the last twenty minutes or eighteen minutes of conversation), is how do you think about, or do you think about building trust with people? Or is it kind of a natural progression of people being able to show up as who they are?

Jen: I think about building trust with people a lot.

Pete: Me too.

Jen: And in fact, my studio manager, Jake...who is like, he's amazing. One of the things we talk about a lot when we're making decisions for the studio is, does this disrupt trust? Like if we're changing business models, or if we're bringing new offerings on, or if we're adding a program, what does that do to or for the people who trust us? And is this going to elevate our level of trust, or is this going to degrade our level of trust? And this is a topic of conversation with us all the time.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. They trust you to show up in a certain way with a certain thing and certain classes, or messages, or whatever. Hmm. Again, I come back to consistency. The consistency in how you've shown up and the way you've shown up has built the trust. So if you were to all of a sudden do something that was inconsistent, out of alignment with that, it would be like, "Woah, you just breached my trust, Jennifer."

Jen: Yeah. And to that end, like when we've had to make some harder decisions, especially during, you know, global pandemic, one of the things we've been very specific about is transparency. That we don't make decisions and then not explain why. (Or if we have done that, we didn't mean to.) Because our goal is to be as transparent as possible about why things are changing.

Pete: Which I think leads to Pete's aha moment of the episode.

Jen: [singing] "Pete's aha moment!"

Pete: [singing] "It's the time." It's the jingle, it's back. The question you asked me earlier was along the lines of, how do I think about trust in collaboration? Or, how do I look for trust? And I think you might have just answered it for me. I think that for me...how do you know when you trust someone? It's when I can see or feel that they are being transparent, and honest. I think that the transparency piece that you just mentioned is really important to the way that I think about trust. Transparent in what you're working on, or how you're thinking about it. Like, "We need ten episodes in the can." You were so transparent. "And this is why." And I was like, "Oh, okay. Yeah. I trust that that's what you believe in, and you need, and you feel is important. Cool. Let's do it." So, transparency. If I feel like you're hiding something from me to protect yourself or something, I'll have a very hard time trusting you. So, I think you might have answered the question. Thank you, Jennifer.

Jen: You are welcome. Well, I have so appreciated this conversation. And thank you to the listener who reached out with that question, because it really did surprise me to unpack that and come to this conclusion. And my goodness, Pete, thank goodness for this relationship. I do trust you with my life.

Pete: Likewise, likewise. And I'm very glad, very glad that I listened to you when you said, "We have to get ten episodes before we start." Because we wouldn't have been here, where we are now, if I hadn't of.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.